A ghost, a pirate, a cartoon vampire and King Diamond walk into a bar… and start a band called Inverticrux.

Now, this is how I imagine this band started: Someone knew someone that booked a metal band and decided to throw together an opening band. Their friends find this band hilarious. No one else gets the joke and finds it obnoxious. The band finds THAT hilarious and decides to stay together.
All I knew about this band prior to listening is that they are a New Hampshire horror metal band (possibly the only one). I don’t like to do research on anyone before I give them a listen for review. I like to decide what I think for myself instead of looking for someone else’s thoughts. Having said this, I don’t know the above paragraph is accurate but this has to be a joke… I really hope this is a joke. If this is a serious band, it’s one of the worst metal bands I’ve ever heard. If it’s done in good fun, I can give them some credit for that.
In order to review this album, I had to stream it on YouTube. Negative points for that, alone. I can’t tell you the name of the tracks or if intros are their own tracks or just the beginning of a song. What I can tell you is this sounds like shit.
I’m not sure if it sounds so bad because it’s being streamed on YouTube, if it’s just a shitty recording or if it’s supposed to sound bad. Nothing sounds leveled right and the high end (especially cymbals) sounds like a really bad digital conversion occurred here. I could see it being on purpose. At times, it’s reminiscent of the old black metal recordings but it doesn’t work for me either way. Everything I said in the opening sentence describes this album, vocally. All of the vocals are goofy but the King Diamond style vocals come out of nowhere throughout the album. I won’t lie, it got a few laughs out of me.

The whole package here sounds so terrible, most people would never even notice that the band actually plays pretty well (minus the drummer’s inability to keep a steady blast beat) and some of the decipherable riffs are kind of cool. The interlude before the last song is an example of that. I wish more of this album sounded like that did.
I also got a good chuckle out of the poorly played harmonica on the second song. This whole album is so ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh at times. Unfortunately, most of this album was just beyond my level of absurdity.
I hate being the guy that reviews something with pretty much nothing good to say about it but that’s the case here. I think there are plenty of people who would find this to their liking so don’t disregard Inverticrux based on this review. I have a feeling if I knew these guys, I’d find it a lot funnier, myself. That’s just the way bands like this are. They are hilarious to friends but most people outside that circle just aren’t going to get the humor behind it. If you’re into ridiculously over the top goofy metal, this might be for you.

4 out of 10
unless they’re being totally serious… if that’s the case…
2 out of 10